Lead Poisoning Risk From Venison

The reason animal products trigger inflammation in the body within hours of consumption is thought to be due to the residual bacterial toxins that survive the cooking process (as l detailed in my blog post How Does Meat Cause Inflammation). The saturated animal fat then helps ferry these endotoxins across the gut wall into our bloodstream. The research team concluded “while the most obvious solution to metabolic endotoxemia appears to be to reduce saturated fat intake, the Western diet is not conducive to this mode of action, and it is difficult for patients to comply with this request.” Thus, researchers have looked to wild animals for less inflammatory meat options.

Wild pheasants, for example, have been found to have significantly less saturated fat than farmed pheasants, so one would assume wild pheasant meat would trigger less inflammation. This concept wasn’t put to the test until recently, though. In my 3-min. video Modern Meat Not Ahead of the Game I profile a study performed by a group of Australian researchers that compared the amount of inflammation triggered by domesticated animal meat to wild kangaroo meat.

They found that eating kangaroos did trigger an inflammatory response, but not as much as the store-brought meat. This would suggest that venison, for example, would cause less inflammation than chicken, but the way in which the deer is killed makes a difference. See my 2-min. video Filled Full of Lead for the results of a study that raised food safety concerns about conventional ammunition.

Note, lead has also been found in protein powder supplements, ayervedic medicine supplements, and other animal products. Like mercury in tuna, no level of lead consumption can be considered safe.

For more depth, the inflammatory effects of animal foods are explored in my 3-part video series:

• The Leaky Gut Theory of Why Animal Products Cause Inflammation
• The Exogenous Endotoxin Theory
• Dead Meat Bacteria Endotoxemia

Most whole plant foods are anti-inflammatory. See, for example:

• Anti-Inflammatory Antioxidants
• Anti-Inflammatory Effects of Purple Potatoes
• Dietary Treatment of Crohn’s Disease
• Fighting Inflammation in a Nut Shell
• Fighting Inflammation With Food Synergy
• Garden Variety Anti-Inflammation

-Michael Greger, M.D.

PS: If you haven’t yet, you can subscribe to my videos for free by clicking here and watch my 2012 year-in-review presentation Uprooting the Leading Causes of Death.

Image credit: LouisvilleUSACE / Flickr

Tagged animal products, chicken, deer, endotoxins, inflammation, kangaroos, lead, lead poisoning, pheasants, protein powder supplements, saturated animal fat, toxins, venison, Western diet